The Story of a Bad Boy

Name: The Story of a Bad Boy
Author: Thomas Bailey Aldrich

by Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Pages: about 204
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 3.8 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 2.1 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

This is the story of a bad boy. Well, not such a very bad, but a pretty bad boy; and I ought to know, for I am, or rather I was, that boy myself.
Lest the title should mislead the reader, I hasten to assure him here that I have no dark confessions to make. I call my story the story of a bad boy, partly to distinguish myself from those faultless young gentlemen who generally figure in narratives of this kind, and partly because I really was not a cherub. I may truthfully say I was an amiable, impulsive lad, blessed with fine digestive powers, and no hypocrite. I didn't want to be an angel and with the angels stand; I didn't think the missionary tracts presented to me by the Rev. Wibird Hawkins were half so nice as Robinson Crusoe; and I didn't send my little pocket-money to the natives of the Feejee Islands, but spent it royally in peppermint-drops and taffy candy. In short, I was a real human boy, such as you may meet anywhere in New England, and no more like the impossible boy in a storybook than a sound orange is like one that has been sucked dry. But let us begin at the beginning.
Whenever a new scholar came to our school, I used to confront him at recess with the following words: “My name's Tom Bailey; what's your name?” If the name struck me favorably, I shook hands with the new pupil cordially; but if it didn't, I would turn on my heel, for I was particular on this point. Such names as Higgins, Wiggins, and Spriggins were deadly affronts to my ear; while Langdon, Wallace, Blake, and the like, were passwords to my confidence and esteem.
Ah me! some of those dear fellows are rather elderly boys by this time--lawyers, merchants, sea-captains, soldiers, authors, what not?

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The Story of a Bad Boy

From the opening

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